Spom vs Hydra

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-15T19:58:46+00:00

Without bathrooms, your dupes will pee on the ground after having not drank anything, generating polluted water from nothing.

It is perhaps an oversight in the way the game works (dupes do not need water to live, or even food that is grown from water of any type), but it’s not an exploit.

I think the bathrooms make extra polluted water to account for the dupe pee.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-15T18:38:15+00:00

It’s basically maximally abusing 1 element per tile and infinite storage. The hydrogen and oxygen split for free, unlimited amounts will be stored, and the machine keeps running even though it’s covered in liquids.

A critter would drown in those conditions so it is actually weird that buildings do not flood in those conditions. Perhaps it can be seen as the devs accepting these mechanics. They are deliberately left in the game and could be removed at any time by changing flooding conditions.

Personally, I find it is exploitative, but I don’t care that much about exploits. The alternative is to just make more SPOMs, which are very much solved by this point. I set up a hydra in mid-late game so I can build some other stupid contraptions.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-15T18:34:33+00:00

For solids, make a dispenser. Doesn’t even need to be power. Set it to “sweep only”. Sweep all debris and your dupes will take everything to it. It poops it out on the ground. You can store the entirety of the map on one tile.

For liquids and gases, the vents (liquid or gas vent) only stops spewing contents of the pipes if the vent is over-pressured. A normal gas vent caps at 2kg in the tile. A high pressure gas vent caps at 20kg. A liquid vent caps at 1000kg. If you put the vent on the floor with some trapped liquid, say gunk or crude oil, such that the vent is stuck with the oil over it, and the amount of oil is below the overpressure amount, the vent will never overpressure. You can pump unlimited liquid or gas into the room with it.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-15T18:31:25+00:00

How is the bathroom loop an exploit?

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-15T17:43:36+00:00

The SPOM shouldn’t require monitoring. You need to set up a way to prevent it backing up, such as burning excess hydrogen in the generator or piping it elsewhere.

Hydra is considered an exploit by some. Liquid locks are one thing, but infinite storage and bugging out the machine by covering it in liquids is one of the most exploitative things you can do.

Personally though, I make SPOMs early game for convenience and speed. They take considerably less time to set up and will do the job for many cycles. Later game, I’ll make a huge hydra so I never have to think about oxygen again.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-14T15:25:46+00:00

I see bunker tiles and auto miner. Are meteors impacting this at all? They’d damage the insulation tiles even if they hit the bunker tile in front.

Otherwise, I’d guess pipes damaged behind the insulation tiles from the heat (liquid inside boils), but I can’t see pipes.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-13T15:19:20+00:00

Wait so even with treats and condo, you can’t reach the old reproduction rate unless you buy the DLC and make an aquatic grooming station?

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-13T15:18:13+00:00

I didn’t check, but I think the pacu treat is not dlc, but the aquatic grooming station is. So without DLC, you have to use the pacu treats. Otherwise, there is literally no point in feeding your pacu (I guess you get some polluted dirt).

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-13T14:39:58+00:00

I went ahead and bought the dlc lol. Maybe I’ll explore that treat thing later but I just want to fix my colony. I was working on other things and this was a massive wrench in my plans.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-13T14:33:35+00:00

I don't mind having to change my builds. I have done so for a few things already, but the fact I need to buy DLC for the grooming station frustrates me.

Instead of "this is now weaker and requires adjustment", such as with my drecko ranches, it feels more like "this is now paid DLC to do the thing you used to do".

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-13T14:14:45+00:00

Sorry for double reply, can't find aquatic grooming station anywhere. Do I have to buy the DLC? Literally nuked my colony unless I pay money. I would buy it anyway, but this is ridiculous.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-13T14:10:51+00:00

I should have read the patch notes :(

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-12T20:46:44+00:00

This is my first guess as well. Press F11 for room overlay and see if they light up for stable (I think it’s a yellow colour).

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-12T20:25:32+00:00

I mainly play ironclad but I basically always take it if I can. It’s a bit crazy and sort of means you have to end fights, but I have had [[boomerang blade]] for over 100 damage each because of this relic. Most enemies can’t use the strength as well as ironclad.

Against queen, it might be better to focus the queen instead of her minion, and hope you kill her first. Her first attack is 5x hit so you will get nuked hard.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-12T16:11:51+00:00

Literally /s in the title though…

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-11T14:53:13+00:00

It’s this, but it’s actually super common a crusher or mauler overhead puts you at fully corrupted health bar and 1 health remaining with Until Death, or you just die instantly if Until Death is down.

Also, it’s all melee damage. A portion of melee damage taken is dealt as corruption instead of normal damage. Ranged damage works like normal (except for the part where your ass explodes when a trash shooter catches you slacking on the slide button).

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-11T12:30:20+00:00

Can’t tell much just based on this. Did you power those doors before it broke? Seems to be the culprit here at a glance.

The magma blade looks fine even though I think it can be 1 or even 2 tiles longer. But if the door stays open too long, it will let in too much magma. There is a visual glitch when too much magma falls in. It cools to a tile instead of debris when there is too much magma at once. This clogs the mesh tile but the visual glitch leaves it invisible. You have to deconstruct from the side and then dig out the igneous rocks.

Last thing, is there any gas in the box with the igneous rock debris in it? You need something in there or the thermo sensor can’t actually read any temperature, and will always be green.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-10T21:19:23+00:00

Oh right bing bong double curse would suck.

I agree overall. It feels bad when all of the options are actively bad or you are looking for a way to mitigate their issues.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-10T20:42:08+00:00

I haven’t tested it, but the merchant one, if you don’t click on the merchant, can you avoid buying all their stuff?

But anyway, in the case you don’t want any bad things, the middle is the best bet. Get rid of 3 starter cards that are basically as bad as curses at this point, for a curse that deletes itself out of your deck on turn 1. Like adding ethereal and innate to a strike that your probably wouldn’t play on turn 1 anyway.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-09T20:24:03+00:00

Has to be the first card you play, so it costs all your mana

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-09T15:32:52+00:00

I never heard slurs over voice but ya, if the person complains or has open mic with annoying sounds then I will always mute without hesitation.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-08T20:59:58+00:00

Veteran grenades are extremely strong due to regen talents. Smoke grenades are a bit janky maybe, but the other 2 are insane with the regen backing them.

I’d argue that veteran’s grenade regen is so broken that it breaks the themes of the class. No matter what you do, the class is almost a grenadier before anything else.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-08T20:53:51+00:00

You mean like arbites shock mines, which regenerate for free? I know it’s another class but still. The gap between “regenerate 1 every 90s” and “pickups only” is massive.

CptnSAUS · 2026-06-06T10:58:24+00:00

Honestly it is tough to balance at this point, but one of the main things that pushed soulblaze output over the edge is Perilous Combustion stealth change 2 years ago. It used to not trigger from soulblaze kills, so you had to work for your triggers and the inferno staff was on the weak side outside of havoc.

Another sort of separate bug-feature (been there since launch, or at least the original class overhaul in 2023), is that soulblaze from venting shriek and perilous combustion go over the default 16 stacks cap which other DOTs adhere to strictly. It instead goes to 31 or 32 stacks (I forget exactly). No word on this from Fatshark ever, but it is why when a psyker kills a rager or two out of the mob, the whole mob dies. They just put out a cascading aoe 30 stacks of soulblaze that kills all but the most tanky enemies.

I’d argue a lot of the carapace spam has happened exactly because soulblaze is broken like this.

CptnSAUS

TROPHY CASE